The Ethereal Skyline: Three poems by Debarati Sen
Photo: Karan Madhok
‘The world is but a granule of sand / seeping fast through my fingers.’
Maple Dreams
Today I woke up to a pastel hued morning.
Had a platter of maple dreams for breakfast
The sunrays stealing its way
through the vertical louvres of the window blinds
strobed around my room.
The sequins off my dress scattered on the floor
reminded me of our clandestine tryst last night.
The mosaic verses and the innocuous times
the sudden crescendo of happy hysteria midst our prosaic lives
made me compose haptics poesy
that I could prod on a sombre noon.
The roaring gush of wind shook me up from my ictus.
The concerto of the drizzle broke my slumber
plunged me into the abyss of reality.
I tumbled headlong.
My body heavy like the tectonic plates
awaited a seismic release.
The rhetoric of grief gradually gnawed at my maple dreams.
Am I still your Innamorato?
I try to sleep again.
My dreams are a safer place.
*
I hide consonants under broken finger nails
I hide consonants under broken finger nails
and deliver a bravura performance.
No, you cannot decipher my fatigue.
I dress up spectacularly
bathed in turmeric yellow
like a wedding ritual.
With my metaphoric verses I paint the sky’s tripod extravagantly baroque
Neon coloured tinges are strewn across the horizon’s bosom.
Just like my broken nails tinctured with the coral blue nail paint.
Hiding a million consonants beneath its hue.
With pebbles inside my pocket
I stare at the ethereal skyline.
It looks like a tumbled bottle of exotic Petite Sirah
A new day has come,
bearing the fragrance of new hopes.
Silently I sit on my old wooden chair
hoping for the rain to wash this world off its pandemic.
Time stands still.
Like a spring evening
that has come empty handed.
I check my nails
It’s time for a manicure.
But before that, I need to hide my consonants somewhere else
Slowly, I pack them in a metal box
and throw them away in the sea of esoterica
till my nails grow back again.
*
Peonies of poesy
Peonies of poesy
acting as a parasol
from the scorching heat of reality.
Amaltas dreams pepping through
gossamer veils.
Emotional myalgia,
somnolent hours,
a sudden bazooka of rainbow syllables
shot through the syntax of memory.
Sunflower renditions,
The wind in her hair.
She wanted a bougainvillea
I gave her dreams
chiseled out of my bones,
Epitaphs of proclivity,
sands of time.
A glass window and autumn
sauntering on my lacerated bosom.
Ballistic oxymoron
Seeping through leaked rhymes.
The world is but a granule of sand
seeping fast through my fingers.
The mountains echoed luminous ballads
on starry nights.
Mist-wreathed hilltops hummed verdant dreams
As October bid goodbye
wrapped in a silken thread of memory.
Clouds waltzed in front of my window.
The turf is filled with leftover poems
that fell prey to the sands of time.
I bit the side of the moon and kept the rest for dinner.
My poems lay tired like the old armchair.
They gave me a weary smile.
The smell of dreams percolated my senses;
gestured me with a happy articulation.
Life is a conundrum
but we must shake it off
like the little girl shaking off
the sand from her sandal.
***
Debarati Sen works at the Presidency University Kolkata as a Junior Assistant. Her debut poetry book Blurred Musings has recently been published. Debarati has been a recipient of the Tagore Award 2022, the Sylvia Plath Women's Literary Award, and the International Poetry Writing competition held by the Elite Book Awards in November 2021. Her poems have found shelter in prestigious websites like The Antonym, The Yugen Quest Review, The Kolkata Arts, Lapis Lazuli, The Das Literarisch, and more. You can find her on Instagram: @debarati_poetry.
